The logic of evolution and the evolution of logic: integrating the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis and later-Wittgensteinian semantics in an evolutionary model that explains conceptual change

Abstract

In this thesis, I develop an evolutionary model that aims to explain conceptual change. Attempts at doing so have generally been called evolutionary epistemologies. These focus on constructing analogies between the way species evolve, and the way knowledge changes. I claim this approach has its limits, and I abandon it in favour of one that grounds conceptual change in the evolution of organisms. It can be seen as an extension of evolutionary theory. This extension is twofold: I first use a framework called the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis to ground what I call practices in the evolution of organisms, and I then use the later Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ideas on meaning and language-games to ground concepts in practices. The result is a model that explains the interdependencies between the evolutions of three notions: organisms, practices, and concepts. In the last two chapters, I apply the model to change in knowledge of logic, and of the notion of logical consequence in particular. In this application, I focus on the logical theories of Aristotle and Chrysippus, and claim that these are grounded in the practices of giving counterexamples, and of the contradiction, respectively.